Here's some goodies I've found on the Web that you may find useful for your 8320HD:
- Not got an 8320HD? Well, Fetch TV have two places to buy a brand new 8320HD - on their own web site (£189.50 including 48-hour delivery) or at their official eBay store (was £157.50 including delivery, but there's currently no stock!). You can, of course, go the "unofficial" route via eBay (be warned that you may get no warranty going this route, even if the vendor claims they are "new").
- Where's the printed manual you ask? It's not in the packaging that came with the box, so you have to download the full user guide PDF yourself I'm afraid. The one advantage is that Fetch TV can update it if they release firmware with new features - printed manuals can actually hold back such features because they don't document any new functionality.
- You can actually also download the Quick Start Guide PDF (you get a printed copy with the box), but note how the full user guide URL in that document is disastrously wrong. It suggests you surf to fetchtv.co.uk/userguide - which tries to wrongly re-direct you to www.fetchtv.co.ukuserguide (nonsense URL missing a "/" after the "k") and even if you go to www.fetchtv.co.uk/userguide, you get a file not found error anyway! No wonder people complain about it not coming with a printed manual, ho hum.
- If you'd like to control your TV using the 8320HD remote control, then there's a PDF available telling you how to do this. Quite why that this important info isn't included in the full user guide PDF is beyond me.
- Your next online visit after buying the box should be to Fetch TV's main Web site run by IP Vision, who own the brand. You can activate the online features of your 8320HD there (credit card alert here: registration requires a valid credit card, even if your "purchases" total £0.00, plus I couldn't delete the card details afterwards, even though the page claimed I could!) amongst other things. The credit card issues I mentioned have been reported to Fetch TV (and the ticket promptly closed with just a standard acknowledgement, so don't expect this to change). Activation apparently gives you one free download of something (don't ask me, I never bothered with it) and - much more importantly - extends your warranty from the original 12 months to a significantly improved 24 months.
- Fetch TV do have a general support page too, but apart from the Fetch TV helpline phone number (0845 0347 348 with "interesting" hours of Mon 3pm-9pm, Sat 5pm-9pm and Sun 4pm-8pm), it's only really useful for a few links to other non-obvious pages. And, no, an 0845 number doesn't cost the local call rate, it's actually 4.5p a minute on BT lines with a minimum charge of 5.5p for the whole call. I'm also not impressed with the IT Crowd-style "turn it off and on again" advice - what about putting it in standby first? Thanks to Denis Martindale for the support page link
- Fetch TV's ticketing system where you can submit bug reports or request new features. Be warned that it is infuriatingly restricted to two open bug reports per user - until a Fetch TV employee actually responds, you won't be able to raise a third open bug.
- Fetch TV's Remote Recording uses a basic EPG to schedule shows, but it is lacking in features (yep, enhancement of this is in the Feature Wishlist tab!).
- The Fetch TV Support site has a searchable FAQ including the details of the latest firmware release and, if you dig deep enough, how to download and install that firmware from a USB stick. I would strongly advise you to check that download link for updates regularly since firmware releases are coming out thick and fast and are fixing a fair number of bugs each time.
- If you lose or damage your remote control, you can pick one up from Fetch TV's shop accessories page, which also includes a replacement mains adapter amongst other goodies.
- If you really, really must use Twitter, then I'll suppose I'll have to tell you that Fetch TV do indeed have their own feed, though it frequently re-tweets the same stuff over and over again - not good!
- I don't have an iPhone, but if you do, there's a free remote recording app for you to play with, though where's the Android version I hear you ask?
- One of the world's largest forum threads on a hard disk recorder ever has sprung up on avforums.com - it discusses the 8320HD and is in 7 parts (so far) as follows: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six and part seven.
- Denis Martindale pointed out that there's been a long-standing Netgem Iplayer Yahoo! newsgroup that also covers the 8320HD. I've joined it to see what's going on there.
- Denis also found a Radio and Telly UK forum discussing both the Netgem and 8320HD boxes, albeit not as prolific as the AVforums.com forum.
- Pocket-lint have posted up a review of the 8320HD and scored it 7 out of 10, which is a bit low now that Fetch TV have finally issued a decent firmware release.
- The closest thing in Australia to an 8320HD is probably Telstra's T-Box, which appears to be a branded N8000 from what I can see. Someone's usefully set up a wiki so you can read up on it.
- A poll has been setup by an AVForums.com user asking people how often they access paid-for Fetch TV content (PPV movies etc.). The answer for me is "never" because of the draconian DRM on the service.
